by Walking Against the Wind: Going Postal in a Zombie-Filled World is a Kickstarter book.
If you don’t know what Kickstarter is I will give a summary. It’s a way for people to donate money towards a project, typically something artistic.
What is Kickstarter?
Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects.
We believe that:
• A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide.
• A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.
Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.
So in this case, author Gabe Barrett has written a novella and wants to get funding to add in some art to the book. Now Kickstarter isn’t a charity so you get something for your money. In this case everything from a digital copy of a book to your name as a major character in one of his upcoming stories. I have been involved with a few Kickstarter projects and the money is always well worth it. Think of it as pre-purchasing something for below retail value as the people who start the projects are just trying to get some of their money upfront to improve or complete some costly parts of a project.
But what is the story? It takes place a couple years after the zombies have taken over and humanity is still clinging to small settlements spread throughout the land. Some level of government exists and air drops supplies to survivors.
The main character in this case is a mail man who simply goes by Postman, who yes, does deliver mail but he also has to go out and pick up those supplies. A highly dangerous job considering some of those supplies land outside of the safe zone. Too make matters worse he has been saddled with a trainee whose inexperience adds another layer to the danger.
I got drawn into this book very easily. I found the main character to be unique even though at first glace it’s easy to write him off as a stereo-typical rough type. It’s very difficult to give personality to this type of character and author Gabe Barrett did an out standing job with it.
My only criticism of the book is that I think it ended too fast and changed its tone a bit too much. In fact, I think Gabe did such a good job with this book that I think he should pull it back and and another 50 or so pages if this Kickstarter project doesn’t meet goal. As is, this is definitely a worthy project of supporting through Kickstarer and I even put a bit into the pool. I am very curious to see how and where this book ends up because I think this book is onto something. This book is more for the young adult crowd and that’s normally something I am a book snob about and ignore.
Here is another link to the kickstarter page.
Grade: 
I love these Kickstarter campaigns. Always cool to see someone with a plan getting support from the community.
I tried that with TRIBES, and it left a smoking crater in the ground. Not as deep as the one for The Gathering Dead film development fund on IndieGoGo, though.
Oh no! That’s dead?
RIP film fund 🙁
No, no, the project isn’t dead. The IndieGoGo crowdfunding initiative is, though. I’ll be trying version two later in the year, once I get the trailer done and arrange to have some other items pop up, such as a dedicated website and the like. I’ll probably head for Kickstarter on that one. (Though it all depends on what the lawyers say… if they say we can’t offer it through that venue, that’s that.)
What a cool idea!
I really think this type of idea will go well with people who read on tablets.